Select date and participants:

Enjoy a guided visit to the museum accompanied by a professional and multilingual guide

Gain an extensive insight into the oldest museum in Colombia

Go and explore history through its entire collection

Travel through time and stand in the middle of a 19th century prison

Overview

If you like history and art, this is the perfect tour for you. Enjoy a wonderful guided visit to the oldest museum in Colombia, accompanied by a local professional guide. Learn about the history that’s behind these walls.

What to Expect

This museum was formerly the most important prison of the region before conversion in 1948. The building was designed by architect Thomas Reed in 1850, but its construction started October 1st 1874. It was inspired by the discipline systems proposed by Bentham in the early nineteenth century, so that prisoners were isolated and cut off from each other, but always watched from a central tower. It also has a Panopticon structure in the form of a Greek cross with a complete view of all four wings, also for better monitoring of the prisoners. In 1975 the government declared the building a National Monument.
Its collection is divided into 4 sections; art, history, archeology and ethnography. The museum hosts a collection of over 20,000 pieces including works of art and objects representing different national history periods. Permanent exhibitions present archaeology and ethnography samples from artifacts found in this region dating 10,000 years BC, up to twentieth century indigenous and afro-Colombian art and cultural heritage.

On this tour, you'll be picked up at your hotel at 10:00, and taken to the museum where you’ll meet your guide. They will give you a private and personalized guided visit of the museum, and tell you amazing stories and facts about the past and present. After the tour is over, you'll have some time to go to the souvenir shop.